Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,06 May 1998,28 mins

SeriesJohn Keegan - War In Our World

Can there be an end to war?

The Reith Lectures

Available for over a year

This year's Reith lecturer is British military historian and journalist John Keegan. In his fifth and final Reith lecture, recorded at the Broadcasting House, London, John Keegan considers the future of war. He argues that it will not be law that will keep the world's peace. Rather it will be because the United Nations retains the will to confront unlawful force with lawful force together with the capacity to resolve the conflicts in which wars originate. He believes that we must not shrink from seeing the causes of war addressed, but equally we must not shrink from seeing violence used when the threat of violence has failed.

Programme Website
More episodes